Saturday, February 26, 2011

Before Japan's invasion in 1910, there was not much of Western culture influenced Korea. People wore traditional Korean outfits, ate Korean food, and lived in traditional Korean houses. Since it was not so long time ago when Koreans lived like "Koreans", there are many historical soap operas broad casted, which reflect Korean history and culture. Those historical shows can be widely divided into two groups. One is based on historical truth, usually about some important or famous historical figures. Since those shows should be based on truth, they usually have much more episodes -usually more than 150 episode-, and tend to be more boring, because there are fewer dramatic situations involved. Another type is the ones that use only historical backgrounds, such as time period, and make fictional stories.

Sungkyunkwan Scandal

Of course the second type of historical soap operas are more popular, especially among teenagers and females in their early 20s. For instance, one of the most recent shows that were broad casted was Sungkyunkwan Scandal (성균관 스캔들), which was widely popular among Korean girls. It describes the life of a girl who has to pretend to be a guy to get into an old Korean elite school, which, surely, is a fictional story.
Even though they are not so popular, it is true that the first type, which is based on the history, is more helpful for the young students in Korea. For instance, one of my friends could always get As for her Korean history class, based one her memory from watching those shows. As the nation becomes more and more Westernized, those historical shows can be helpful to acknowledge of the culture. If you are interested in these shows, you can watch some if you go to hulu.com and type in Korean Drama on the search tab.